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Italian Internship Sharpens a Creative Mind

July 23, 2015

Anyone would love to visit Italy for a vacation. But how about going to Italy to intern at one of the world’s major retail environment firms?

LIM College professors Eric Feigenbaum, Chair of the Visual Merchandising Department and Marjorie Lee Woo, Associate Chair, selected Erica Pierson, a Visual Merchandising major (Class of 2018), to be one of two LIM students to complete a one-month internship at Grottini Retail Environments’ headquarters in Porto Recanati, Italy. Erica also represented LIM College at Global Shop in Las Vegas earlier this year.

“This is unlike any other internship I’ve had,” says Erica. “I feel like a top executive joining in on meetings and Skype calls with clients. Working with the Head of Design, as well as the owner of Grottini has been an experience like no other.”

Her first day there she began working on creating a shop-in-shop environment for Butterfly Twists, a women’s shoe brand, that will be inside of Topshop stores internationally. Towards that end she’s been creating designs, sketches, and presentations for brand concepts that will work for Butterfly Twists, Grottini, and Topshop.

“I’ve also been working with the owner of Grottini to create the perfect logo for an up-and-coming store,” says Erica. “So far I have created over 40 different renderings for the client to choose from.”

According to Erica, a lot of the work at Grottini is hands-on and in a fast-paced environment. From a professional point of view, her experiences have been beyond amazing. Erica says that with the focus of this internship her creative mind has gotten even sharper. “I now think a lot more critically about physical design, graphic design and design solutions.”

In addition to getting a valuable amount of experience under her belt, Erica says she is confident in her ability to achieve, as well as create, great things. “The key takeaway from this experience is to always work hard, try your best, and never give up. Working hard really does pay off and gets you places in life.”